Selected Projects / UBC’s School of Kinesiology and the Canadian Institute for Health Research (CIHR): Interaction Design for Aboriginal Communities

Jonathan Aitken, Director of the Health Design Lab, and the University of British Columbia’s Dr. Darren Warburton and Dr. Shannon Bredin were recently awarded the CIHR grant “Addressing the Burden of Diabetes in Aboriginal Peoples Through Culturally Appropriate Interaction Design”. The Health Design Lab assisted with the design of a tablet/smartphone application for prescriptive exercises towards the prevention of diabetes in Aboriginal peoples. Through the use of participatory design research methodologies to ensure a good understanding of the cultural context, a design solution was proposed that has a stronger expectation of exercise compliance than would be possible with a more generic off-the-shelf design. This was also a collaboration between the Health Design Lab and Emily Carr’s Aboriginal Program, led by Brenda Crabtree. Gina Hetland and Stacey Hagel were the Research Assistants for the project.